“Then Cody got worse. He brought my mom more drugs, and she was worse than ever, but he wouldn’t let her stop. He started telling her what to wear—sexy clothes and more makeup. Once, he came over after I was in bed, and he brought this friend. I heard Mom saying she didn’t want to do something and I heard him hitting her, and I snuck into the living room to make sure she was okay and she was ... doing stuff. With the friend.”

Oh, shit. “Do you want to talk about that? What you saw?”

“I know what it was.” Her cheeks reddened. “I just ... I never saw it before.”

A girl her age shouldn’t. Especially not when the one demonstrating is her mother.

I asked Kayla how she felt about what she’d seen, which seemed the right thing to do, but she squirmed and blushed, and I decided just to tell Paula, so she could deal with it.

“After a while, when Cody didn’t leave his wife, Brandi told Mom she should at least ask for a better place to live. A good place, so Brandi could move out of her mom’s house and live with us. There were lots of empty apartments around and Brandi figured that Cody could get us a good place super cheap.”

“Did she ask?”

“I think so. I came back from school one day and she was drunk. She said we weren’t moving—not into Cody’s house or anyplace else—and it was all my fault.” Kayla’s voice went monotone, like she was reciting the times table. “She said she wished I’d never been born. She said Grandma was a selfish bitch for not taking me so she could be happy and marry Cody.”

“You know that wouldn’t have made a difference, right? Cody was just looking for an excuse and he blamed you. He wasn’t going to leave his family. If your grandma took you, he’d have found another reason.

“I know.” She got up and walked away, and I thought Shit, I’ve said something wrong, but she only dumped her half-eaten cone in the trash, then came back.

“After that, things got really bad,” she said. “Mom was crying all the time, and she wasn’t taking care of herself, having showers or anything, which only made Cody madder and made him hit her more. Brandi didn’t help at all. She never did. Grandma told Mom not to listen to Brandi—that she only wanted the booze and dope Cody brought—and Mom should leave him. She wouldn’t. Grandma tried getting Mom to talk to Dr. Graham about it, but that only made Mom get mad ...” She looked out across the street. “It was bad.”

“You know your grandma was trying to help, right?”